While companies like Samsung , SanDisk and RiTek have been
touting their 32GB Flash SSDs which feature Parallel ATA (PATA) interfaces, PQI
has upstaged the companies by (re)announcing a 64GB Flash SSDs with
both PATA and Serial ATA (SATA) interfaces.

We first saw PQI's 64GB Flash SSDs at Computex in June. At
the time, PQI said that the drives would be shipping in August. Well, August
came and went and not a peep was heard from PQI.

With the competition starting to heat up in this sector,
PQI has stepped up its efforts to get its Flash SSDs in gear. PQI's 2.5"
Turbo SATA SSD will be available in capacities up to 64GB and will have a
maximum transfer rate of 100MB/sec.

The SATA design also makes the drive more attractive to
notebook OEMs. SATA has high penetration in the notebook sector and has
effectively been shutting out PATA hard drives. With the smaller cable size,
PQI's SATA solution becomes a more attractive offering than the competition.

Pricing and availability is not yet known for the 64GB SATA
Flash SSD, but hopefully PQI doesn't leave us hanging like it did when it first
announced the drives.